Enigma
by Lulala
Summary: [sequel to Somebodies] Riku's nobody is on the loose. Between starting wars and shaking up Riku's love life, he's causing all around chaos. How can Riku and his friends stop him?


Welcome to the sequel to "Somebodies", "Enigma":D You don't HAVE to read Somebodies, but it's recommended... I tried my best to explain everything, but, it still might be a good idea. Anyway, as promised, here 'tis!

**"Enigma", By Lulala**

**Summary:** Riku's nobody is on the loose. Between starting wars and shaking up Riku's love life, he's causing all around chaos. How can Riku and his friends stop him? R x OC, S x K

**Rating:** T, for language and possible fighting scenes.

**Disclaimer:** None mine, except for the two OC's: Riku's nobody Xurik, and Asahi. Fun stuff. :D

And. Without further ado. I bring you... Enigma!

...ooo...

"Riku…" Kairi whined loudly, sour look on her face. "Hurry up!"

"I'm trying," he snapped, fighting his way through the dense forest, Kairi hot on his heels. Despite the trees that covered the majority of the squishy, damp forest floor, the extremely hot temperature was leaving them all with faces shimmering with sweat.

"Leave him be," Asahi said gently to Kairi. "He's really trying hard… Riku, do you want me to lead for awhile?"

His head snapped in her direction. "I'm fine," he insisted through gritted teeth, chopping away a vine with his keyblade. "You okay back there, Sora?"

"Fine," Sora answered, trooping along behind Riku and the girls. "How much further, do you think?"

"Dunno," Riku shrugged, continuing to struggle against the trees and weeds that were literally everywhere. "It's gotta be around here somewhere."

"It didn't seem like it was this far in," Sora said skeptically, cautiously peering over his shoulder, as though he was expecting to be jumped at any moment. "Do you really think—" Suddenly, Sora's foot caught on a vine, and down he went. He knocked into Kairi, who was in front of him, and caused a domino effect: Kairi fell onto Asahi, who landed squarely on Riku. Scattered curses from each individual came flying out of their mouths.

"Sora, what the hell?" Riku demanded, though he wasn't entirely complaining about the situation—after their awkward hand-holding moment when Roxas and Naminé had disappeared weeks ago, there hadn't been much contact between he and Asahi until now.

She pulled herself up off of the ground, face beet red. "Yeah, Sora, what's your problem?" she asked, helping Riku up.

"Sorry," he mumbled, embarrassed. He helped Kairi up, and gave her a quick hug in apology.

Though Sora and Kairi were totally cute together, Riku couldn't help but hating it when they did stuff like this—probably because Sora had had the nerve to talk to Kairi, but he didn't have any confidence at all, and would probably never be able to talk to Asahi. She was 18—why would she have any desire to mess around with a stupid little 16-year-old?

Roxas and Naminé… Riku wouldn't deny that he missed his confusing little conversations with them. They had disappeared, and promised to be around and visit often… and yet, they had seen nothing of them since then. Nobody knew where they had gone, but, as they said, they were together. Riku was happy for them, the same way he was happy for Sora and Kairi… but at the same time, a deep feeling somewhere between loneliness and bitterness was simmering somewhere inside him. People in love were just disgusting, weren't they?

"Let's go," Riku said, an edge of bitterness finding its way into his tone. "Who knows how long it'll take us to find this camp?"

Asahi eyed him uncertainly. "How do we _know_ that these people will be of any help?"

"We don't," Riku answered simply.

"Tarzan knows everything that goes on here, though, so he'll know if Xurik has been around," Sora told Asahi. "Trust me on this one."

Xurik, they had just discovered a couple of weeks ago, was Riku's nobody. His escape from Riku's body was mysterious, but, as previously indicated by Xurik himself, it was somehow instigated by Xemnas. One thing was for sure: Xemnas had wanted to get rid of Riku and Sora very badly, and the only way left for him to do it was to release yet another pawn to do his bidding: Xurik.

Xurik, who had revealed himself to Riku and Asahi in an old study in Disney Castle, had made his intentions clear: he was going to eliminate Riku and Sora at all costs. Sora had, unfortunately, burst into the room before Riku had a chance to slaughter Xurik, and Xurik had fled.

So far, the search for Xurik hadn't gone anywhere. A lot was at stake—finding Xurik before he struck was extremely important. After all, he _was _Riku's nobody, which meant he was capable of pretty much anything…

Asahi still looked uncertain. "Okay, but we better get there soon, or I'll collapse. It's way too hot."

"Riku can carry you," Sora offered, grinning widely.

Asahi spun around and trudged after Riku, heat creeping up her face. Sora was taking every opportunity to tease Riku and Asahi, similar to when Riku used to tease him about Kairi. He and Kairi continued after Asahi, smiling occasionally at each other as Asahi stumbled nervously along in front of them.

Riku rolled his eyes at Sora's comment. Although it was completely true—he would carry Asahi without much of an argument… he didn't like it when Sora pointed it out right in front of her... she was probably laughing at him in her head right now…

As Riku pushed his way through two particularly stubborn clumps of weeds, he tumbled out of the dense forest, landing on a patch of clear ground, which came upon about as suddenly as a cliff. In front of them stood the camp they had spent all this time searching for—Jane's camp.

Riku helped Asahi out of the forest, and she was soon followed by Sora and Kairi. As they walked into the camp, Sora called expectantly, "Tarzan? Jane?"

Riku had never been to the camp before, but found that it was the one place in the entire jungle that he could stand to be at all. Its assorted instruments for experiments were scattered all over a long, wooden table. Near the table was an old, metal stove, with several pots and pans on top. There was a large tent erected near the center of the camp, along with a tall, slim flagpole. All in all, it was the one part of the wretched forest that felt even somewhat welcoming.

Jane came clambering out of the tent moments later. "What? Who's there?"

She spun around, and saw a disheveled Sora, Riku, Asahi, and Kairi.

"Oh, my!" she squealed, rushing over to Sora and giving him a quick hug. "It's been ages! How are you? Much taller, I see!"

Sora smiled a little. "I've been great… how about you?"

She backed up to get a better look at the tired, sweaty group. "Fabulous," she said, smiling widely. "Tarzan and I are really getting some great research on the gorillas… and who are your lovely friends?"

"Riku, Kairi, and Asahi," Sora informed her, gesturing at each.

"Ah, so you ended up finding Kairi and Riku," she said, still smiling. "Great for you, Sora!"

He chuckled a little. "It was definitely no walk in the park."

"I see," Jane replied, laughing a little. "So… any particular reason for dropping by?"

"Well," Riku began, "we're looking for… a guy. Seen anyone running around here in a black coat recently?"

Jane looked up at the sky in thought. "You know, I haven't seen anything, but our things have been disappearing recently, and Tarzan has been finding them days later in the tree house… you might check up there," she offered. "I hope that helps!"

"Thanks," Riku said gratefully, "we'll definitely check that out."

Jane pointed them towards the perilous trek towards the tree house, and Asahi and Kairi groaned. "Do we have to?" Kairi whined at Sora.

He slipped his hand into hers reassuringly. "It's okay, it won't be that bad."

Asahi sighed, and leaned over onto Riku. He slid his arm over her shoulders comfortingly. "Come on… the faster we search this place, the faster we get out of here."

"If we'd known you girls would complain so much, we wouldn't have brought you along," Sora teased, being the first to start up the steep slope.

Kairi followed him, and Riku gave Asahi a little nudge. "Go on," he said, smiling a little. "You heard Sora… we might just have to run back to the island and drop you guys off!"

She scowled at him, but began to walk after Kairi anyway. "Even if I'm slowing you down, you're lucky I came at all," she pointed out.

Riku sidled up to her on their way up the hill, but didn't reply, even though he knew it was true. Just after Roxas and Naminé had left, when Riku was finally working up the courage to tell Asahi how he felt, they were interrupted by the King's arrival. He had, at last, after long hours of searching, found Asahi's world. Why she chose to stay with Riku, Sora, and Kairi instead of going back to her family and career was still a mystery, though everyone had their own hunches.

"So. Having fun?" Riku grinned sheepishly as Asahi's cheeks tinged pink from the effort of climbing the hill.

Asahi rolled her eyes, fighting a smile. "Shut up, Riku."

They fought their way up the rest of the slope, and soon came upon the tree house—a large, wooden structure nestled in the branches of an enormous tree. They wandered around on the platform surrounding the tree house for a few minutes, taking in the extraordinary view of the much-hated forest. When they at last came upon the door to the house, Sora led the way in without any hesitations. There wasn't a door of any kind, and all four teens trouped through the doorway and entered the tree house.

Sora could tell that a lot of work had been done to the house since the last time he had visited. Previously littered by old junk, torn apart years and years ago, it seemed that Tarzan and Jane had made plenty of trips up to the house clear out the junk and put it to good use. In fact, many of the broken objects in the house had been repaired, and the room had been put back together and rearranged.

"So, what are we looking for?" Kairi asked, trying desperately to summon her own keyblade. Sora and Riku had been teaching her, but so far, no luck.

Sora chuckled a little as she struggled. "Want help?"

She nodded, embarrassed.

He summoned hers, and then his own. "We're looking for suspicious things," Sora told her, handing her the keyblade with a smile.

As they began to poke around the tree house, Asahi spoke up. "You know," she said thoughtfully, "we can't blindly search for this guy forever. The universe is a big place."

Riku considered this for a moment. "She's right," he agreed. "We need to find a lead."

"Well, who do we know that would know a lot about what Xurik might be trying to accomplish?" Sora asked, tapping his chin in thought as he scanned a table for anything of value to their search.

"The only person who knows anything is Xemnas," Riku answered, downcast. "And, thanks to our brilliant plan, he just happens to be dead."

"That would mean that our best bet would be The World That Never Was," Kairi said, perusing a mostly empty bookshelf.

"To get there, we'd have to find Twilight Town again," Sora pointed out. "And even if we find Twilight Town, there's no guarantee that it's even still there."

Riku thought about this for a moment. "I think we should probably visit the King before going anywhere else… and I guess I should have another look in that study, see if I can see anything…"

Asahi cast him a disapproving glance. "You're not going alone."

Riku heaved a sigh as he leafed through some papers that had been resting on a small end table. "He said he wouldn't hesitate to hurt you," Riku reminded her, knowing full well that Asahi was stubborn, and that she wouldn't give up without a fight.

"Riku. I don't care," she insisted, crossing her arms across her chest. Riku caught a glimpse of her, and felt his stomach wrench into a knot. "You know I'd die if it meant you were safe."

He was floored by this comment, and couldn't stop himself from showing it. He dropped the papers, and turned to face her. She was holding her hand over her mouth, looking as though she hadn't wanted that little detail to slip out. Riku tried to keep his mouth from dropping open, but gravity had other ideas. "Asahi… I mean, that's… the nicest thing anyone has ever said…"

Sora and Kairi slipped out the door, but neither Riku nor Asahi seemed to notice. "I'm sorry," Asahi finally said. "I didn't mean…"

Riku smiled a little. "No, it's okay… you know I'd do the same for you, right?"

She returned his smile. "Thanks, Riku. You know, you really mean a lot to me."

He locked eyes with her. Looking into her bright, reassuring brown eyes, he somehow felt like everything would be okay—Xurik wouldn't kill everyone, and he would get what was coming to him… "I just don't want you to get hurt," he told her gently, desperately hoping that she wouldn't get angry again.

She bit her lip thoughtfully, and broke the electric gaze in favor of staring at the ground. "I know, but… I don't want you to be alone… what if something happens?"

Riku used his pointer finger to tilt her chin up so that she was looking at him again, and let his arm fall back to his side. "Any fighting situation with him is still weeks away, I'm guessing, and…" he stuck his hand out into the space between them. "Until then… anything's possible."

Asahi smiled, and high-fived him. "That's lame, Riku. Nobody does that anymore."

He laughed. "Whatever. At least you feel better."

Still smiling, she suggested, "Let's finish up here, and then go find Sora and Kairi."

Riku gathered the papers he had dropped up off of the floor, and continued to look through them. Asahi continued to browse around the house. Riku became bored with the papers quickly. Most of them consisted information about gorillas, or the forest itself—nothing worthwhile, obviously. Finally, he went from skimming each page to just giving it a quick glance. Near the bottom of the stack, a change of handwriting caught his eye—he yanked the paper out of the stack, and read it over.

"Oh my—Asahi!" Riku called.

She hurried across the room. "What is it? Did you find something?"

Riku thrust the paper at her. "Read."

He watched her eyes widen as they ran across the page. "You've gotta be kidding."

"Looks like we were right to check here first."

Hidden within the stack was a page of notes written by none other than Xurik.

...ooo...

Oh my, did they strike it lucky or what? What clues do Xurik's notes give them? Read chapter 2, coming soon, to find out!

Thanks for reading, review if you want!

Lulala


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